


Snow Bunny of the Northwest Territories

by Bluehaven4220



Category: due South
Genre: Babies, Established Relationship, Family, Family Feels, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-23
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-07-26 07:24:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7565347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluehaven4220/pseuds/Bluehaven4220
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The way their family had started was completely weird, but Ray would take it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snow Bunny of the Northwest Territories

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vic32](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vic32/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [Vic32](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vic32/pseuds/Vic32) in the [DS_C6D_Prompt_Meme](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/DS_C6D_Prompt_Meme) collection. 



> Just a little bit of Ben and Ray family fluff :)
> 
> Currently unbeta'd, so all mistakes are mine.

It was no secret that Ray had always wanted kids. He and Stella had talked about it plenty of times, only for her to eventually tell him that she didn’t want to give up what they had. After all, she’d worked too hard on her career only to have it interrupted by pregnancy bloat and fatigue. Plus, as she’d said numerous times before, she just didn’t think she could achieve a "healthy work-life balance" with a baby in the mix, whatever that meant.

Even a year after their divorce, he’d been left wondering if he hadn’t pushed her. What if they had just decided they weren’t going to be one of those couples who had kids? What if they could just be happy together and enjoy each other’s company without the pressure of raising kids?

But then, he realized, if he’d done that, he wouldn’t be where he was today.

He had fallen in love with Benton Fraser, RCMP, precisely eighty-seven seconds after meeting him. And it had taken him over a year to tell him so, and had been prepared for Fraser’s kind- hearted, polite rejection, because there was absolutely no way he could ever love him back.

Fraser had surprised him by cupping his cheek and gently kissing him in response.

Well, he supposed that answered _that_ question.

Now, two years after that, Ray had settled his affairs in Chicago and had stayed in Inuvik with Ben and Dief, settling into a cabin they’d built together. It had only taken him the better part of six months to adjust to the cold, which was helped immensely by the fact that Ben could make a hot meal out of anything they happened to have in the fridge, and hot food cured all.

Domestic life in Inuvik wasn’t all that bad, he decided. They had access to everything they could possibly need. Sure, there weren’t very many pizza joints around but if push came to shove, that was one thing Ray could actually cook without burning it. The hospital wasn’t too far away, and whatever they couldn’t hunt, they could get from the grocery store (never mind that it cost an arm and a leg because they had to fly everything in). He understood that life in Inuvik would be different from Chicago, but…

But he didn’t expect _this._

Dief had barked and scratched at the door, woofing and whimpering, hoping to wake them up. By the time Ben had opened the door, Ray had just been stumbling out of bed.

“Oh dear…” Ben whispered loud enough for Ray to hear him.

Ray knew that tone of voice. That was Ben’s _we’re in trouble and we need to think of a plan_ voice. He waited as Ben bent down, picked up what looked like a woven basket, and gasped when he pushed the door closed with his hip and set the basket on the table.

Good God, a baby.

The poor thing was cold from having been outside in a basket, he was sure. For what he could see, the little one had been left on their doorstep with a note pinned to the blanket they’d been wrapped in. If the baby hadn’t been enough to break his heart, the note certainly was.

_Laying down to perish. Please take care of my baby. Her name is Kathleen. She’s yours now._

Shit. This little girl was now an orphan.

The first thing to do was to warm her up, he knew that much. He watched as Ben unwrapped her from the blanket and furs her mother had wrapped her in. Her cloth diaper was wet, something Ben had no problem changing her out of and laying her down on the kitchen table, just long enough to strip off his Henley, and picked the baby up again.

“Come on, sweetheart,” Ray heard him whisper as he brought the baby back into their bedroom and laid down on the bed. “Best way to warm her up is skin to skin contact,” he explained as Ray followed him, fluffy towel in hand. He laid it down on the nightstand by Ben’s side of the bed and climbed in the other side, discarding his own shirt and snuggling beside the two of them.

“Would you please pull the blanket up?” Ben asked, waiting as Ray did so and moved closer to his lover and this new little life who had crashed through the door. “Lay your hand on her back, Ray,” Ben whispered, cradling the baby. “So she’ll know both our touches.”

Just as he did, the baby sneezed, and piddled at the same time.

“Whoops,” Ben reached over and grabbed the towel, mopping up the small puddle he was now sporting. Hell, if either of them were bothered by bodily fluids, they wouldn’t have gone into law enforcement.

“I wonder where she came from,” Ray whispered as he ran his hand gently down the baby’s back, Ben whispering soft Inuktitut as she smacked her lips and settled down on Ben’s chest.

“We’ll figure that out in the morning,” Ben answered, turning his head toward his lover.

Ray kissed him, and fell asleep with the light on.

**ooOoo**

The next morning, he woke up alone.

Blinking, he went out to the kitchen to find Ben walking around, still holding… what was the baby’s name? Kathleen?

Yeah, Kathleen. 

Dief was following Ben on his heels, quietly making sure this new member of the pack would be properly taken care of.

“Hey, she’s dressed,” Ray smiled, noting the fresh cloth diaper and clothes Ben had found for her.

“Good morning, Ray,” Ben turned around and smiled. “We were both awake early so we came out to the kitchen and the living room. We didn’t want to wake you up.”

“I don’t mind being woken up,” Ray answered, coming into the kitchen and grabbing a mug from the cabinet. “Especially when there are two very pretty people already awake to greet me.” He poured himself a cup of coffee and held it away from Ben and Kathleen. He leaned in and kissed Ben good morning just as Kathleen squawked.

“Oh, you want a kiss too?” he chuckled as he ran a hand across her head and planted one on her hair. “Where did you find the clothes?”

“They were folded underneath her in the basket,” Ben answered as Kathleen made gurgling noises, gumming his shoulder. “Is my shoulder palatable, Miss Kathleen?”

“Seems to be, since she’s gumming you like she hasn’t eaten in a week,” Ray observed. “Do we have anything for her? Baby food or something?”

“She’s not old enough for baby food quite yet,” Ben answered, holding her underneath her arms and shifting her enough to cradle her. “She can’t be more than six months old. She’s likely still breastfeeding, or if not that, formula or goat’s milk.”

“We don’t exactly have access to a goat, Ben, not this far north.”

“That’s true, and since neither of us have breasts, it’s either formula or a wet nurse,” Ben held Kathleen to his shoulder again and lightly bounced. “But who do we know that’s still nursing?”

“Hold on,” Ray interrupted. “Let’s not go jumping off bridges trying to find a wet nurse. Is there anything left in that basket?”

“I only saw the clothes, but then again, she wasn’t quite hungry yet. Would you take a look?”

Ray smiled and went toward the basket still sitting on the table and rummaged through it. There were a few more cloth diapers and a seal skin baby carrier, but that was it. No expressed milk, no formula. Shit, what were they going to do?

“There’s nothing here, Ben,” Ray looked up and around the kitchen, but as people rarely came to visit them, he was sure there was nothing for her in the house at all.

“Alright, I’ll take the truck,” Ben nodded, ready to hand the baby to Ray and head out.

“Ah, no no,” Ray shook his head, holding up his hands in a surrendering gesture.  “I’m not so good with babies.”

“I thought you liked children, Ray.”

“I do, it’s just… you’re better at taking care of them, and she seems to like you,” he went to the closet and grabbed his coat. “I’ll take the truck, what do we need for her?”

“See if you can find-” he rattled off a brand of baby formula Ray had never heard of- but all he could do was nod and go out the door, hoping that Dief would be lenient enough to let Ben take care of Kathleen, knowing what Ben had told him about wolves and pack behaviour. He didn’t want to come home to find Dief snarling at Ben or worse.

Ray wasn’t sure if he ran through the grocery store or just walked on air, unsure of what his feet were doing. But when he got back into the truck, he realized he’d picked up bananas and a head of red cabbage as well as the formula, bottles, and another pack of diapers.

What were they going to do with bananas and a head of cabbage?

Oh well, Ben would figure something out. He was good at things like that.

Ray drove back home to hear Kathleen screaming. Poor thing, she was probably super hungry, and they’d had nothing to give her at the moment, at least not until they prepped a bottle.

“Okay, Ben, we’ve got diapers, we’ve got formula, we’ve got bottles. That should do for now, right?” he hauled the grocery bags onto the counter and stared at his partner, who was rubbing circles on Kathleen’s back. “I have no idea how to make a bottle. Give me the kid, you do that.”

“Agreed,” Ben very carefully transferred Kathleen to Ray, who walked around the cabin with Kathleen making herself comfortable, resting her head under his chin and calming down a bit. Instead of screaming, she was simply gurgling and hiccuping slightly. “Ray, I think she’s taken a bit of a shine to you.”

“Huh?” Ray had been too busy swaying back and forth, somehow relishing the thought that this little girl could be theirs, but only if they could not find her family. If they did, he knew they couldn’t keep her. “Huh, suppose she has. What do you think, Ben? Do I look good with a baby in my arms?”

“You look absolutely beautiful with a baby in your arms,” Ben agreed, screwing the top back onto the bottle and shaking it, mixing the water and formula. “Here. Do you want me to feed her or do you want to try?”

“You probably should, Ben. Like I said, I’m not so good with babies.”

Just as Ben went to take her back, Kathleen let out a discontented noise, making it understood that she very much wanted to stay with Ray, grabbing a handful of his shirt and bumping her mouth against her fist, drooling and mouthing at it.

“Well, she’s definitely made herself clear,” Ben chuckled as he untangled Kathleen’s fist from Ray’s shirt. “Here, let me help you,” he readjusted Ray’s arms and laid Kathleen down. “Now you’re supporting her head and back, so she comfortable, now hold the bottle this way,” Ben put his finger over the nipple and shook it again to redistribute the warmth and maneuvered it in Ray’s hand. “Hopefully she won’t get gas.”

Ray found he couldn’t say anything as Kathleen took to the bottle almost immediately. The poor thing was so hungry she had drunk almost half the bottle down before Ray had been able to sit down on the couch, pull the bottle away, sit her up and pat her back, trying to get her to burp.

She did more than burp.

“Uh, Ben, she just…”

“It’s alright, Ray. It’s only a little spit up. Here.”

Ben took a clean hand towel and gently wiped away the spit up before smiling at his partner. “There, that’s not so bad.” He ran a finger down her cheek, getting her to smile.

“So that’s what you look like when you’re not screaming,” Ray put the bottle down on the table and cuddled her close. “Hey there pretty girl.”

Now much more satisfied, Kathleen closed her eyes  and stuffed her tiny fist in her mouth.

Ray couldn’t help but chuckle. “I don’t want to give her back.”

“We have to try and find her family, Ray,” Ben reasoned. “Even if her mother left her on our doorstep, we have to try.”

“Maybe she left her because there’s no one else,” Ray settled the baby close against his chest. “Didn’t the note say she’s ours now?”

Ben stopped. Ray was right, baby Kathleen had been left on their doorstep with a note stating thus, but there was no way such a note would hold up in a court of law.

“Come on Ben,” Ray’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “Just once… can we let ourselves have something we want so badly?” he was pleading now, absolutely beyond caring about how desperate he sounded. “She’s just…” he searched Ben’s face for any sort of reaction. “I don’t know. She feels like she’s meant to be ours, you know?”

“Well,” Ben scratched just behind his ear. As much as he wanted to keep the baby, he knew that in all good conscience, he couldn’t do so. Not without at least trying to find any of her relations. “If we cannot find her family, then we can look into fostering and then adopting her.”

Ray smiled. It was a small victory, but he’d take it.

As he watched Kathleen cuddle into his shirt, he couldn’t help thinking of the future, if they could keep her. The first time she’d call him Dada, her first steps, her first day of school…

But for now, he’d settle for her first cuddle on the couch, Ben by his side.  


End file.
